A Seaside Christmas

“Sounds good. I read the script and I’ve made some notes. I even have a few preliminary lyrics jotted down.”

Bree grinned. “I knew you would. I should probably call your agent tomorrow and work out a deal with her.”

Jenny regarded her with dismay. “No deal necessary. I’m doing this for the chance to work with you.”

“Sorry. You’re a professional songwriter now. You write songs, then you get paid. Given the kind of fees you can probably command these days, I might ask for the friends and family discount, though.”

“I’ll send an email to Margo and let her know,” Jenny said. “Come to think of it, she left me a message earlier, but I’m too beat to deal with it tonight. I’m actually surprised she called. I told her when I left that I was officially on vacation, that there was nothing that couldn’t wait till I get back to Nashville after the first of the year. I need a complete mental break from everything. I thought she understood that.”

Bree frowned. “If you told her that and she called anyway, maybe it’s important.”

“There aren’t a lot of emergencies in my line of work,” Jenny told her. “Tomorrow will be soon enough. Whatever it is could probably wait till after New Year’s, for that matter.”

“Your call,” Bree said.

In the guest room, Jenny took her cell phone from her purse and deliberately placed it in a dresser drawer. She piled a few sweaters on top of it for good measure. She’d meant it when she’d told Margo she wanted an uninterrupted break for the next few weeks.

Though she’d worked through the breakup with Caleb and the resulting fallout, enduring the pity and even a fair share of gloating from women who’d once envied her, there was no denying the stress of the past year. Since coming back to Chesapeake Shores was likely to be stressful in its own way, she didn’t need to have it compounded by professional obligations that could be put off.

As she shut the drawer on that part of her life, she smiled. If only it were that easy to lock away the memories. Unfortunately, there was no place to shove those. They were destined to keep on haunting her until she opened her heart to someone new. Right now she was thinking that wouldn’t happen till hell froze over.

Chapter Three

Caleb left Nashville as soon as he could throw some clothes into a suitcase. Since he tended to live in jeans, T-shirts and his leather jacket, packing didn’t take long. He threw his bag and several of his favorite guitars into the back of his 4x4 truck and headed east.

He liked driving at night, partly because there was less traffic, but mostly because it was what he’d gotten used to on tour. The band would finish a concert, party for a couple of hours, then head out on their bus for the next city on the tour. Of course, someone else was paid to drive them then, but he’d never tired of staring out the windows at the passing landscape, the lights of shadowy towns in the distance.

He’d always wondered what it would be like to settle down someplace, put down roots. The closest he’d come had been the couple of years he’d been with Jenny in Nashville, though he suspected if he counted up the nights they’d spent under that roof, it would have been less than half of those he’d spent on the road. And he’d never given up his own place, made the commitment to living with her. In retrospect, he wondered if he hadn’t known from the first that sooner or later he’d mess up what they had together.

Maybe he’d gotten his wandering gene from his father, who’d taken off when he was still in grade school and who was still wandering, as far as Caleb knew. To his everlasting regret, on his rare visits home he still caught his mother gazing out the window sometimes, her expression wistful, as if she thought there would eventually come a day when Noah Green would turn up again.

Caleb knew better. Wanderers never settled in one place for long. If they were anything like him, they had the same problem being faithful. He’d always believed, though, that if it was possible to make a lasting commitment, to live happily-ever-after, Jenny was the woman he’d want by his side.

It was ironic in some ways that their absentee fathers had drawn them together. When they’d first met, they’d spent long hours talking about that. Though Jenny claimed she didn’t care a bit about the man who’d fathered her, he’d known by seeing the hurt in her eyes that it wasn’t true. He’d seen that same pain in the mirror a time or two. He’d been just as clever about denying it, though.

But if the pain had given them a connection, it was music that had brought a shared passion into their lives. Caleb lived to be onstage, to entertain an audience. Jenny lived to create lyrics that people could relate to, to touch a place in their hearts or express a profound sense of joy. Her music could tug at the heartstrings or lift the spirits better than anything he’d ever heard.

At times in rehab, when he’d been struggling to break the hold alcohol had over him, he’d worried that what he’d done to Jenny would somehow silence that amazing creativity. Instead, if the song he’d heard Ricky sing was an example, the heartache he’d inflicted on her had been a source of even deeper inspiration. It was possibly the only good thing to come from his despicable actions.

Reflecting on what a mess he’d made of things was bringing him down, so he flipped on the radio, found a country station and let the music wash over him as he drove from Tennessee to Maryland.

Unfortunately, this habit he had of hitting the road late at night put him into Chesapeake Shores before dawn. Since it was apparent that the town rolled up the sidewalks long before midnight and the nearest motel had been miles back, he was momentarily at a loss.

Then he thought of the Inn at Eagle Point that Jenny had mentioned belonging to someone in her family, or in that big extended family that put a faraway look in her eyes whenever she mentioned them. Using his cell phone, he found the address and directions, then made his way along a winding waterfront road that emerged on a point of land overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. The inn stood before him with welcoming lights beckoning from the downstairs windows.

He hauled his bag and guitar to the front door, only to find it locked. A small, handwritten sign posted under a bell beside the door read Ring for Assistance, so he did exactly that. Again and again, he pressed the button, then watched through the glass panels on either side of the door for some sign of activity.

A harried-looking woman who was surprisingly young eventually padded down the stairs and unlocked the door. She was barefoot, wrapped in a thick robe and clearly annoyed, but beautiful just the same.

“It’s the middle of the night,” she pointed out unnecessarily.

“Exactly why I need a warm bed,” Caleb told her, turning on the smile that he’d been assured could melt the coldest female heart. Women the age of this one—early thirties—were reportedly especially susceptible. This woman, however, seemed to be immune. In fact, her gaze narrowed and she drew the robe even more tightly around her as a breeze swirled around them.

“You’re Caleb Green,” she announced as if he might not be aware of it.

“Guilty.”

“I’ll say,” she muttered.

Her reaction didn’t bode well, he concluded. Of course, anyone in this town who knew Jenny was likely to be on her side. He should have thought of that.

“Look, I’ve driven a long way tonight. I know I’m inconveniencing you by arriving at this hour, but I really would like to book a room, if you have one available.” Since he hadn’t seen a single car parked in the lot, he waited to see if she’d flat-out lie and send him away.

She frowned at him, clearly torn. Apparently, an innate sense of hospitality eventually kicked in. “One night,” she said at last.

“Indefinitely,” he countered.

Her frown deepened. “Why? If you’re here to cause trouble for Jenny, you’re not welcome, not at the inn, not in town.” The warning proved she knew the whole history and had already chosen sides.

Caleb smiled. “I see what Jenny meant about this town getting in her business.”

“We take care of our own. And Jenny’s not just a local. She’s family.”

He recalled the connection he should have made the instant the door opened. “You’re an O’Brien,” he concluded.

“I’m Jess Lincoln now, but, yes, I’m an O’Brien.”

“Which makes you what? Jenny’s cousin?” Not that Jenny had embraced being an O’Brien, as far as he could remember. She’d felt alienated from the whole lot of them, even as she’d longed to be one of them. Though she’d denied it, he’d recognized that yearning in her eyes whenever she talked about them.

“Exactly. Jenny and I are cousins, at least I like to think of us that way.”

He decided to forget charm, which was likely to be wasted, and go for being direct. “Okay, Jess, what’s it going to be? Do I get that room? Do you want to call around and take a family vote, while we both stand out here freezing, or what?”

Though there was no mistaking her reluctance, she stepped aside. “I suppose you might as well come on in, but if I find out later that Jenny wants you gone, you’re history.”

He nodded, accepting where her loyalties would naturally lie. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Jess pulled a key off the rack behind the desk and handed it to him. “We’ll deal with the paperwork tomorrow. I’m going back to bed before my husband comes down here, sees you and tells me what a huge mistake I’m making.”

Caleb chuckled. “A risk taker. I think I like you, Jess O’Brien Lincoln.”

She shook her head. “Save that smile for someone who’ll appreciate it,” she said. “The room’s up the stairs and to the left. We serve breakfast from seven to nine. Miss that, you’re out of luck unless you head into town.”

“Got it.”

As he climbed the stairs he wondered once more about Jenny’s refusal to come back here for so long. Sure, he knew there were all sorts of unresolved family dynamics at work, but he’d gotten the sense from Jess that any distance was all on Jenny, not the O’Briens. Jess, like Margo Welch, was a woman who’d always have Jenny’s back. Multiply that by what he recalled was a very large O’Brien clan and he wondered how much more difficult that was likely to make his mission to mend fences.

* * *